I thought I’d give back to the T-Nation community by sharing my experience in bodybuilding, specifically my breakthrough I just went through that I think might work for others. They say that you usually go through long plateaus in training until everything comes together and you have a spurt of growth. I think the following could be a way to force this phenomenon on your body.
I went on the Anabolic Diet through the last 6 months of last year and it worked great. I may function better on low carb diet (carb intolerant as Poliquin puts it) so keep that in mind. I took a much needed break from training during the holidays leading into '07 and came off the Anabolic diet as well as a 10x3 full body strength training program. After this break, I kept eating carbs and started training on a hypertrophy split 6 days a week.
I’ve had the most results I’ve ever had in any comparable time period since this. The reasons I believe are because the Anabolic diet greatly increased my insulin sensitivity as well as using fat as the primary source of fuel. And so
when carbs were reintroduced in my everyday diet, I think my muscles put them to great use and the insulin was put to even greater use, and I was spiking it every day at least at breakfast and PWO. All along I was burning much of the fat intake for energy from being adapted to burn fat.
Combine this with the break from all training just beforehand and going from full-body strength into hypertrophy split training, I’ve added a great deal of muscle in a very short period of time.
Of course, I will most likely start to use mostly carbs for energy and become more insulin resistant from spiking it all the time as I keep this up, so after this bulking phase, I will go back on the Anabolic Diet. Throughout the year, I plan on cycling between periods of:
- A maintenance or cutting diet while strength training on the Anabolic Diet and
- Bulking with hypertrophy training on a carb rich diet.
I highly recommend trying it, and maybe what worked great for me can do the same for you.